Morass
by garamonder
Summary: "It felt like the spiraling circumstances that had landed her in the Wobani prison camp, one deteriorating step after another." After Scarif, things go from Worst to Not Much Better. It was a familiar feeling to Jyn, like a curse that would not go.
1. Chapter 1

When she looked to the east she saw the Star Destroyers in slow freefall. Flames wreathed their hulls as they entered the atmosphere, and it would have been mesmerizing were they in a position to watch. Jyn was scanning the compound and saw only bodies. They were suddenly, eerily, alone.

The false moon appeared in the sky like just the real sort did, right there before Jyn ever noticed. Its eye was coming to bear on the little archipelago, and she didn't bother to wonder if the Empire would really incinerate what was left of their own forces just to scour the fight.

She would die here, she knew. It was almost family tradition; Ersos never lived long. The bitter corner of her mind, which she normally kept fastened by survival and aggression and anger, surfaced to air its resentment of the family curse. Cassian sagged at her side, and she found herself wishing Andors had better luck. There was a beach up ahead, and Jyn remembered the very different shore from her too-short time on Lah'mu, where she'd skip stones into the waves when they weren't too choppy. They'd go that way.

She maneuvered Cassian as best she could toward the beach. Her own ankle was twisted, but she could walk. Jyn had lived most of her life looking over her shoulder, but as she prepared to die she saw only straight ahead, to the ocean.

And so she might have missed the ship taking off, perhaps some last Imperial dreg making its escape, if it had not come bearing down upon them. The roar of its engines mingled with the one in Jyn's head, and she stared up at it hardly daring to believe, wondering if Bodhi had possibly managed to come get them. This _Lambda_ had different identification markings than the one they'd arrived in; he must have stolen another ship!

"Come on," she urged Cassian with renewed energy, and they stumbled in a tangle toward the lowering ramp.

It was as they had reached the ramp's top and practically fallen into the main hold that the Death Star's eye lanced the horizon, and Jyn saw it distantly bloom between the rapidly closing hatch. The hold was empty and she struggled up with Cassian to snap him into a harness, and then herself. The shuttle was already surging away. For the second time Jyn watched through a transparisteel window as her footsteps were incinerated.

She was left with a familiar feeling of helplessness. The shadow of the Death Star seemed to go everywhere with her; you would know her path by its slaughter.

The ship rocked and bucked as the first concussive waves reached it ahead of the blaze. Emergency light bathed the hold in a dull red before that died as well, swamping them in a darkness that was breached by a sudden burst from the horizon. Sunlight from the dying sky swept over the hold like a microcosm of the ruination below.

Jyn and Cassian's hands found each other and gripped tight. Bodhi managed to coast the worst of the waves, having known from Jedha what to expect. At last the turbulence receded and she began to breathe again.

The thundering noise filled their ears and drowned any attempt to speak. They gazed at the destruction in their wake, the Empire's bid to stamp out the rebel attack, before Jyn turned her attention to the destruction still ahead. There was waning chaos in the space above Scarif and they could begin to make out the hulls of other ships, directly in their path.

"He's going the wrong way!" grunted Cassian, and Jyn hastily unbuckled so she could reach the comm.

Before she had a chance to press it, the comm flicked to life and the pilot's tinny voice said, "I'm going to reroute to another rendezvous point." At that the shuttle began to steer away from the remnants of the battle, toward clear space.

The voice was shaken and uncertain, and it was not Bodhi's.

Jyn and Cassian stared at one another. The Imperial pilot had mistaken them for comrades. They'd shed most of their uniforms but still wore the trousers and boots, and the pilot hadn't looked closely at the figures on the beach. She fought off the crashing disappointment and searched for anything that might be used as a weapon before the Imperial could discover his error, at which point he'd seal off the cockpit and open the hold to suffocating space.

Cassian ripped off his harness and followed Jyn, adrenaline again staving off the worst effects of his injuries. He limped over and showed her he still carried his blaster. Then he pressed the comm and said with the authority all officers shared, neutralizing his accent to the clipped Imperial ideal: "This is Lieutenant Sharr from Pad Seven. That was good timing. Is anyone else with you?"

Mercifully, the pilot knew no better and responded. "Just a gunnery sergeant. There wasn't _time_ to _—"_ And they heard the note of disbelief, unwilling even now to believe the betrayal. Jyn could relate but not sympathize, and hovered with an urgent glance for Cassian. A hundred plans flashed behind his eyes, no less clearly for the pain he was in.

"Set a course for the Uo system," he said finally. "There's a garrison there we can rendezvous with."

Jyn stared hotly at him.

Releasing the comm button Cassian muttered, "The garrison there is a joke. We just need to get to hyperspace."

Once they reached hyperspace, the pilot would not open the hatch, and couldn't drop into realspace without risking the entire ship. Nodding her understanding, Jyn's eyes rested on a heavy fire extinguisher, and she quietly eased it from its hanger. Cassian's grip tightened on the blaster.

"Is it big? What do we say when we get there?" the pilot asked nervously. Even with his base destroyed, he worried about being charged as a deserter. He followed orders with the relief of a lowly pilot glad to have an officer around to give commands.

"We'll wait and see what the Empire says," said Cassian. "It must have been a mistake."

"Yeah," came the rushed, desperate reply, then: "I mean, yes, sir. Setting a course for Uo."

There was a pause, and Jyn and Cassian waited with baited breath in case the sergeant decided to come out just then. A moment later they heard the pilot announce they were making the jump. The hyperdrive whined slightly and Jyn readied the extinguisher, muscling her way in front of Cassian. He shot her a look of protest that she ignored. He was holding it together but he was still seriously injured, _duh._ Even with her throbbing ankle she was in much better shape.

The cockpit door slid open and the gunnery sergeant stepped out into Jyn's attack. A single blow to the head and he was down. Cassian handed Jyn his blaster and she dashed into the cockpit, where the pilot was craning his neck to see the cause of the loud thump. She leveled the blaster squarely between his wide eyes.

"Out of the seat," she ordered. The pilot obeyed and shuffled away from the controls, hands held up. Cassian slipped into the chair and began surveying the controls without much familiarity.

"You're not a lieutenant," said the pilot numbly.

"Actually, he's a captain," said Jyn. She motioned him further into the hold. "Binders. On him and then yourself."

The pilot looked around wildly. "I don't—I don't know if I have any—"

That was something Jyn did have, and she tossed him a pair. Still in shock, he fastened them on the gunnery sergeant. "You're rebels."

Well, obviously.

"You destroyed our base!" the pilot cried.

"No, your side did that," said Jyn, but the pilot was shaking his head, refusing to accept it, and babbling accusations again now that he had found an enemy that didn't have to be his own commanding officers.

"It was you, you did it somehow…"

In a way, she supposed he was right. "Think what you want. If you cooperate, there's no reason for you to die." Actually she could think of several reasons that he should die, all of them fueled by the rage that was beating back the sorrow at the gate. Above all, she wanted to shoot him for not being Bodhi.

"Where is another pair of binders?" she asked down the barrel of the blaster.

Somewhere he discovered a modicum of courage. "I'm not telling you anything."

Jyn was in no mood. "Neither of you goes without a binder. You can find another pair or you can choose which of you gets to wear it and who gets the blaster bolt." She meant it. For a heartbeat she hoped there wasn't a second pair.

He stared hatefully at her before motioning to a side compartment. With her blaster trained on him, Jyn opened it and felt around the regulation supplies for the binders, tossing them to him when she found them. Once he'd snapped them on Jyn paused to examine them both. The pilot carried no weapons but Jyn found a blaster on the sergeant and tucked it away.

These _Lambda_ s had a sealable storage locker large enough for them both. Under her direction the pilot dragged his sergeant into the hold, glaring at her all the while. She didn't remotely care; she would have shot him for the slightest provocation. The hatch sealed shut before his accusing face and she almost buckled from fatigue and suppressed despair.

Bodhi, K2S0, Chirrut and Baze, all the others…and the ones before them, her father, Saw…No. She forced them all into a space she would deal with later. She had done it so well all her life. So, too, did she push away the questions about the plans, and the fleet. For now.

Making sure the seal was locked tight, she walked unsteadily back to the cockpit to find Cassian in a decreasing state of focus. Almost certainly he had a concussion and the high tide of adrenaline had receded to expose the many injuries on the shore. Jyn rooted around in the same compartment in which she'd found the binders and drew out the medkit. It contained very little, basic astringents and bacta patches, some painkillers and stims. Imperials didn't need the same emergency supplies as rebels who were often cut far off from available medbays.

Cassian accepted them with such little protest she knew he was far worse off than he was letting on. "You're limping," he did point out.

"It's just sprained. It's sore, but it's not serious." Jyn spoke honestly, knowing he'd get his hackles up if she tried to downplay it.

He let her apply the patches. Jyn was as careful as she knew how to be but he was in awful pain and winced at every touch. It made her feel guilty; she'd learned some rough medic skills among Saw's people but never developed a gentle penchant for it. She knew enough to tell there were broken ribs and maybe a shoulder, along with myriad other injuries that came from such a nasty fall. Jyn inspected his scalp as well but had trouble interpreting the mess of bruises, blood and bumps as anything more specific than "not pretty."

He insisted on her taking a patch for her ankle and she nursed her private wounds in silence. Jyn felt drained, depleted. She wasn't about to process the people who'd died on Scarif. Determinedly detached, her only thought was: _at least their bodies were incinerated_. The Empire would not have the satisfaction of parading their corpses as she'd seen before. Then she slammed the hatch shut on those thoughts, before their meaning could overwhelm her.

"Can you fly this?" she asked Cassian. Though it wouldn't matter if the captain lost consciousness.

He frowned at the controls. "Not well," he admitted. "I could probably making a landing intact."

"Reassuring," muttered Jyn.

Cassian actually flashed her a tired smile. "Maybe I'll look up some refresher courses on the HoloNet."

She almost laughed, until she thought of the macabre statistics K2S0 would certainly have trotted out, and the laugh died on her lips. The captain followed her thoughts and fell silent a moment, while they stared at blank hyperspace. After a moment Jyn noticed that he was nodding off, and sharply tapped his head.

"None of that," she warned. "You're concussed."

A mild concussion would be none the worse for a few hours' sleep, but she was poor at telling how serious it was. He had to stay awake long enough to satisfy concerns about worse symptoms.

Cassian roused slightly, but his eyes didn't completely lose their glaze.

She wasn't sure how other people handled their griefs—whether, like her, they compartmentalized them and buried them away until they fossilized into old grudges, or if they simply cried, or openly mourned. Jyn knew she would mourn, in a way she thought she'd forgotten. In the more formal Alliance there were _procedures_ , a martial discipline for processing grief, and Cassian was nothing if not disciplined.

"I'm sorry about your friends," she said. It would have been cruel of her not to.

"Thieves, rogues, spies, all," Cassian mumbled, sounding a little loopy. "And me too. Murderers and sneaks. Not the rebels you'd hear about in stories."

"You are in the ones the Empire tells," said Jyn. Her lips curled into a sardonic smile. "I like those."

He smiled at her again, but it faded a little. "I'm sorry too. For…too much."

While she appreciated the sentiment, it was another thing that would wait. The distance in his voice was a more pressing concern. "How long til we drop out of hyperspace?"

"A few hours." Cassian struggled with the answer and squinted at too-bright hyperspace. Jyn found a dimmer for the viewport.

Too long, she thought. Understandable, as they needed to put some distance between themselves and Scarif, but a real problem if he lapsed completely into unconsciousness before they reached Uo—which, by the way, was a system she knew almost nothing about. That, combined with handling two prisoners on her own, presented a combination of sticky problems that likely had only very sticky solutions.

"You need to stay awake. I'm going to need your help."

This stirred some dutiful reserve she knew she could rely on and Cassian tried to sit up in his seat. She felt bad again, for appealing to his responsibility when it felt so manipulative, but she was no pilot and the Imperial was an absolute _last_ resort.

"Where'd you get so responsible, anyways?" she muttered. She'd always seen duty as a loose string anyone could tug on. Both she and the captain might have begun fighting the same enemies at early ages, yet their wars weren't the same.

"I fell in with different rebels," Cassian said wryly.

Jyn could hardly argue. Saw never preached about the greater good, only the cause of retribution, which had appealed to the little orphan girl who had hate to spare. Retribution and rage were the languages Jyn spoke best. She had no real desire to master the dialects of community, order, service…her fingers itched at the thought. To think she'd about thrown in with Cassian's lot, if they weren't blackguards to a man she never would have, and she told Cassian so. His laugh startled her.

"So, what…little Lieutenant Andor, nine years old?" she mused.

"That's a long time between promotions. Did Saw have officers?"

"Not really. Right hands, sometimes." _I should know, I was one_. "No real ranks."

Was that the difference, then? The chance to advance? It was simpler with Saw, and she'd always appreciated simplicity. Advancement meant dead stormtroopers, not honors. Did the little bars of rank really add so much legitimacy? Because Cassian did so want to be legitimate, she saw that now. He had a personal code of honor that suited a soldier better than a spy, and it never stopped chafing at the tasks he had to fulfill—and _did_ fulfill, with deadly efficiency. That code which never fully aligned with espionage stopped him from trying to do anything else. Duty! That's all it was, and it's how they got you well and good.

There was a difference between a soldier and a guerilla fighter, and Jyn had never cared to close the gap.

"You could have become an infantry captain instead," she told Cassian, who seemed bemused. Or maybe he was getting dizzier.

"They've got brawlers," he said. They _needed_ brains. Sure, but Jyn had always felt a lot better when she could throw a punch and have done with it.

"How are we going to contact the Alliance?"

Grimly, Cassian said, "We'll have to play that by ear. Once we hit realspace we'll assess how safe it is to transmit."

From the way he slurred, _she'd_ end up doing it. "Tell me how."

He did, with pauses to muster words that were becoming foggier. Uo, it turned out, was not the backwater rural system she expected, but a buzzing metropolitan moon with what seemed like a similar setup to Nar Shaddaa: a minimal Imperial presence that was thankfully corrupt and trade managed largely by a series of syndicates. Another difference between Jyn and the rebel captain: he chose to disappear among people, while she skulked around the edges like a vrelt.

"You are going to need bacta," she said after he'd told her more.

"They have a tank there," Cassian murmured. Stiff hands attempted to rub away a worsening headache. "We'll say—"

Lurching over, he retched onto the floor of the cockpit. Jyn sprang over to him but was helpless to do anything but put a hand on his shoulder and hope the symptoms would end there. There wasn't any ice aboard the _Lambda_ and neither of her prisoners was a medic—not that they could really do much for it anyway.

"Sorry," mumbled Cassian, wiping his mouth.

"You're wearing Imperial boots, I'd throw up on them too."

He laughed quietly and she was suddenly sorry for making the joke as he clutched his head.

"Maybe we—"

Jyn never had the chance to finish. The cockpit erupted into a flurry of warning lights and alarms and she looked up to see the streaking morass of hyperspace stop dead, and they were back in realspace.

"What?" she gasped. Were the calculations wrong? Did the pilot set a different course than he'd said? She frantically scanned the viewport and spied a large hull in the dead space. Its teardrop curves were a immediate giveaway for a Drell starship, and she felt her stomach sink. Drell ships were a common favorite among pirates, and more of them swarmed her view.

Cassian swore. "It pulled us from hyperspace."

She'd never heard of anything short of an _Interdictor_ _-_ class cruiser truly capable of reaching up like some god's fist and plucking a ship from lightspeed. It was the kind of horrifying fable you heard from ancient spacers in backwater bars, who would tell you as tall a tale as whatever tankard of ale you bought them. It didn't actually _happen_.

Everything happened in five seconds. Before there was any chance of seizing the controls, the _Lambda_ was wracked by ion cannon fire. Control systems spasmed and died as the engines were disabled.

Jyn looked over the controls. "How do we fight?"

No answer.

Turning to Cassian, Jyn had her mouth open to ask again but the words died when she saw him slump to the floor. "Cassian!"

But his head started lolling and she heaved him back into the seat. There was no time to think, no time—

She slit open one of the auxiliary chairs in the cockpit under its seat and stowed one of her blasters. It would probably get found right away, but she didn't have a better idea just then. Let her prisoners stay where they were. Ion blasts had knocked out any chance to fight _or_ flee, and Jyn despised not having the choice.

In a nanosecond she'd cursed in every language she knew and allowed a burst of outrage at the sheer terrible luck of it all. It felt like the spiraling circumstances that had landed her in the Wobani prison camp.

Clunks and the ramp's lowering gave her just enough time to seal the seat back up again. Seeing figures emerge into the hold, she stood again and brushed damp hair from Cassian's forehead. _The Force is with me, I am with the Force…_


	2. Chapter 2

Clunks and the ramp's lowering gave her just enough time to seal the seat back up again. Seeing figures emerge into the hold, she stood again and brushed damp hair from Cassian's forehead. _The Force is with me, I am with the Force..._

"All passengers, come into the hold with your hands UP," rang a voice in stilted Basic. "No weapons."

"Blaster down," said Jyn, setting it on the deck, and she moved into the hold with raised hands.

A Weequay head appeared and swiveled until it spied her moving in from the cockpit. The barrel of his blaster rifle tracked his gaze. "There are more of you?"

"My partner is injured—he's in the cockpit. I have two dangerous men imprisoned in the storage hold."

The pirate frankly didn't know what to make of this. "You are not Imperial."

 _And you must be desperate to risk attacking an Imperial ship, or you would have fled at the sight of a_ Lambda. "The hell no."

Was that the flicker of a grin? It was hard to tell with Weequay. It might also have been relieved. "You can have anything on board you find—including the Imps in the hold, if you want—and we won't make any trouble for you," she continued.

"How kind of you." The alien made a motion and came fully into the hold, followed by several more pirates of varying species, none human. All advanced with their weapons held up, bemused at the sight of the lone woman standing in the threshold. "It is indeed wise for you to not resist." He glanced toward the rear at the storage hold and said, "They are Imperials? You stole their ship? Very bold. This is not a part of the galaxy to easily do such a thing."

 _You're one to talk_ , she didn't say, but was painfully aware of Cassian's labored breathing. If looting was all they came for, perhaps they'd get whatever they wanted and speed along their way. Seeing that they weren't Imperials was good. Depending on the species, their hostilities generally ran against agents of the Empire. Hostages were not often a priority with nonhuman pirates and she didn't want to make it one—a prisoner as injured as Cassian wouldn't be worth the energy to treat.

In these situations it was good to volunteer the information. "I haven't been here long enough to know what supplies it's got," she said.

Possibly she was being too calm, because the Weequay and another lieutenant—a Devaronian— merely regarded her before continuing their search of the hold. One of them unsealed the storage locker.

"Come out," he ordered with his gun ready.

The pilot sidled out, peering around before raising his bound hands. Jyn was spitefully pleased to see his initial relief—he thought they'd been chased down by Imperials—slide into fear. _Ever take orders from an alien before, Imp?_ she thought savagely. _Best learn._ She hoped he didn't.

Behind him followed the sergeant. Jyn didn't know why she was surprised to see that he was handsome, in a gruff way. She hadn't looked before. His sandy hair and serious blue eyes were plucked straight from an Imperial recruitment poster, and he was taller and broader than any of them. He seemed recovered from the blow. Jyn hadn't intended to maim him too badly anyway, but still felt resentful that the Imperial was up and walking while Cassian labored with a concussion.

The pirates were further amused at their hands being already in binders. " _We should thank the human female for doing half our work for us_ ," laughed the Devaronian in trader's argot. Unable to understand the mangled tongue, the Imperials were grave before the laughter. Jyn didn't betray her comprehension.

The Weequay shouldered past her into the cockpit, where he considered the unconscious rebel. "Will he live?" he asked curiously.

Jyn hesitated. "He—he's tough. But he does need a medbay."

She was conscious of the Imperials listening, the pilot with especially poorly concealed hostility. "One less insurgent," she thought she saw him mutter to the sergeant, and wanted to shoot him for it. The Devaronian told him to shut up.

Jyn wanted to ask for help but didn't know how without putting them at a further disadvantage. It struck her that with disabled engines, the _Lambda_ had no chance of making port anywhere even if the pirates agreed to leave them be after the looting. Usually that meant sitting around with a distress signal until a kindly ship stopped by—probably another Imperial.

"You could help him," she said lowly to the Weequay. He seemed taken aback by the request. "Why?"

Leverage, she'd once learned, was best disguised as the other person's advantage. "You probably figured out we're rebels," Jyn said, with no idea if they had actually made the connection. "We escaped from an Imperial base on Scarif just before it was competely destroyed. If you contacted the Alliance you could probably ransom us. But you'd get a lot more for two healthy rebels than just one."

At this the Weequay paused and exchanged a look with another pirate.

"A ransom?" the pirate asked. "I have never heard of that for rebel fighters."

"How often do you hijack them?" Jyn shot back, and regretted the edge that stress had put in her voice. If anything it amused the pirates further. It did not amuse the Imperials.

"Ransom?" said the Imperial incredulously. "You think those anarchists would split half a credit for _you_?"

Considering the Rebellion military's infuriating reliance on bureaucracy, "anarchists" was hardly fair. "The Rebellion appreciates its officers," Jyn said with a sly look toward the Imperials.

"So does the Empire," said the pilot hotly. "Ransom _us_!" _You've got another thing coming_ , thought Jyn.

Right then wasn't the time to argue. Cassian was still unconscious, pirates were crawling all over the hold and Jyn had scarcely stepped foot off the beach where she should have died. This was the time for appeasing, for cajoling, for negotiating.

She turned to the Weequay. "I don't care what you do with them," she said. "But my partner's worth more to you alive."

He hesitated, and she intuited that he was a lieutenant and not their leader. But then he shrugged and said over his shoulder in the trader's argot, " _Take the rebel male and patch him up_."

 _The Force is with me, I am with the Force,_ thought Jyn.

Two of the pirates came and lifted Cassian up like a rag doll and Jyn was startled by a sudden memory of her childhood toy, the little stormtrooper whose limbs shook and dangled. It felt unnatural to see him so helpless when his natural state seemed one of order and command. He was getting help, though, and Jyn's relief was palpable.

Noticing, the Weequay wagged a finger and warned, "You are at best a hostage now—remember this. The captain will want to talk to you."

Jyn didn't need the reminder. She'd won one step, the next would come at high cost—hopefully to the Rebellion's credit vouchers. Not taking the chance that the Imperials couldn't command a few credits themselves, the pirates ushered them after the departing crew. Jyn halfway wished they'd shoot them there. Saw would never have left them alive as she had; had she gone soft? He'd always drilled the lesson that the only decent Imperial was a dead one.

As though they read her sullen mind, the Imps glared at her on their way out behind the pirates. Again, she could almost sympathize: they'd returned at risk to their own lives for comrades stranded on the beach, only to be ambushed in hyperspace to a destination set by one rebel and hijacked once more by pirates. And again, it stopped at "almost." She should have shot them.

The Drell starship was curves on the inside as well as out. Jyn and the Imperials were prompted by the Weequay down one corrider while Cassian was carried another way. She watched him go.

"What destroyed the Imperial base?" asked the Weequay from behind them. "The Imps," said Jyn.

At almost the same time the pilot cried, "The rebels!"

Jyn channeled her full disdain in the look she gave him. "First you think the 'anarchists' don't have two credits to rub together and now you think they're capable of blowing landscapes apart? Whose _planet killer_ do you think that was?"

"Planet killer?" echoed their captor.

Such fools they were, these Imperials. "You don't even know what weapons they've built," Jyn said to them. Her lip curled.

"Once they figure out you're full of it, they'll eject you both from the nearest airlock," hissed the pilot.

"Shut up," the sergeant told him before Jyn could.

An old hate flooded Jyn's stomach and filled her vision. She gave them a vrelt's smile.

"How many Imperials made it off Scarif?" she said softly. "Less than a dozen?" Neither of the officers answered. Frowning, the Weequay watched them. "Soon," Jyn said, "It will be just you and your sergeant."

They had unconsciously drifted to a halt.

"One by one, your comrades will straggle back to the Empire, thinking they'll find sanctuary there with their own people. An officer will calm them and shush their reports of a hellfire from the false moon, a moon their Empire built. He'll tell them it was all a mistake. He'll promise them some Alderaanian ale for their nerves. He will reassure them that he knows they aren't deserters. He will lead them to another officer, who is just as sympathetic and understanding.

This officer will listen to them. He's even kind. He will ask them a few questions, like—did any more of your comrades survive? He will listen to everything they say and once they're done, he'll lead them to their quarters himself, promising them rest. It will just seem like a bad dream, he'll say. He'll step behind them, and take out his blaster. And—"

She took her fingers and pointed them at the Imperials' heads, then pulled the trigger. The corridor was silent.

She wanted to _hurt_ them, she wanted to see how it hurt. Nothing this day had given her so much pleasure as seeing the blood drain from their faces. Jyn stared at them, memorizing the expression, glorying in their realization. Even as the arguments flashed behind their eyes, they died on the lips.

"Best hope they don't ransom you," she murmured.

The moment stretched on a long time. When she finally looked back to the Weequay she saw a new wariness in his eyes.

"Keep moving," was all he said.

At last they reached what seemed to be a control room. It was positioned oddly on the ship, it seemed to her, but she didn't know anything about Drell starfighters.

A Barabel stood monitoring and Jyn didn't need the Weequay's introduction to tell her this was their captain. Inwardly she was slightly surprised to see such a well-organized outfit, but the reptilian Barabels had a finicky sense of honor and heirarchy that apparently extended to criminal organizations.

He—Jyn was almost certain—must have been briefed by another lieutenant as he didn't seem puzzled by their arrival. "It ssseems we have hijacked some hijackersss." He seemed almost amused. "I'm told you believe you'd fetch a fair price from your Alliance."

Jyn noted that he said _Alliance_ rather than Rebellion or some derisive name. If the pilot noticed too, he held his tongue for once.

"She spoke of a planet killer, built by the Empire," announced the Weequay.

Prompted by the questioning look the pirate captain gave her, Jyn nodded. "They've built a weapon that can blast a planet to dust."

"I notice you're not dust," drawled the Barabel.

"They're still testing it," Jyn hazarded. It was probably true. "But not for long."

It was strange to tell someone so far removed from the war on either side. Almost like airing the laundry. Something that so recently was a backalley secret Cassian snuck and murdered and stole to get the smallest word about was now confirmed and operating. The Imps clearly felt muzzled, judging by their frustrated frowns, but the Barabel did not invite them to speak. He only gazed at Jyn with an unreadable expression.

Finally he asked, "How do we contact your rebelsss?"

Regardless of any planet killers on the loose, there was potential profit to be made. A pirate's unique prudence.

A flush threatened to creep up Jyn's neck. "The captain knows." She thought fast before they could doubt. "Not all of us are given codes. It's a safety measure. He's a senior officer."

It was reasonable and it would prompt them to treat Cassian with a little more care. She wasn't about to admit that by most standards she was, at best, only loosely associated with the Rebellion.

When the pirate nodded she couldn't tell if he believed a word of it. He and the Weequay exchanged a few more words in argot, discussing where to hold their prisoners. Jyn was tempted to ask if she could stay with Cassian, but didn't want to push the familiarity and start asking favors. She would have to trust they were treating him well.

The sergeant spoke, taking them aback: "How did you pull us from hyperspace?"

He didn't phrase it accusingly, but as a matter of curiosity and even admiration. Flattery evidently wasn't lost on them, for the Barabel snickered.

"One of our crew was a ssspaceport controller, once," he hissed through a toothy grin, "with clever ideas about hyperspace routesss." Unsurprisingly, he didn't elaborate: no reason to give away secrets to hostages who might walk away.

" _Take them_ ," he said to the Weequay in argot and waved them off.  
Before they reached the door he called after them, "Make no missstake. You are hostages for now,

but your safety is not a given. Do not make trouble, or you will be shot." No one doubted him.

Again they marched through the corridors, coming to a small prison unit comprising of a couple of bare cells. They looked to be in the same condition as the ones Saw had kept—Saw, who saw no use for prisoners generally and so saw no point in keeping cells maintained.

Jyn ignored the implications and recieved her own space, directly across from the Imperials. She settled on the cheap bench and lay back while they fidgeted before finally accepting the squalid condition and sitting down.

Her future was by no means assured, but she felt in control in a way that she hadn't since staring down Krennic on the control tower. And she _had_ felt in control, seizing with savage triumph the moment she saw his face drop the same way she'd just felt when the two Imperials across from her realized they, too, were drastically misled.

But in a way she was also alone for the first time since she'd reset the antennae on the tower. She'd had no thought then for anything except the transmission— _so close, so close—_ but now there were no distractions except for worried detours into wondering about the state of Cassian's health.

Nothing stood in the way of everything crashing all at once, and Jyn smothered her mouth with a hand while struggling to control her heaving chest.

Her friends died.

All of them died in the Scarif jungle, mowed down by fire and grenades. Hopeful Bodhi, acerbic K2, spiritual Chirrut and stolid Baze, who had called her little sister—and all of the murderers and spies and thieves that had been her kind of people. In the space of a week everything she'd painstakingly built to protect against another breach of her defenses had been dismantled. She felt like a traitor to be alive and breathing. Had the plans even made it?

Would Cassian even live? Had she misjudged the extent of his injuries?

All the power she'd just felt dissolved in a flash. Tears stung her eyes and she squashed them miserably with the heel of her hand. Her breathing sounded uncomfortably loud and she hated the Imperials even more for being so nearby.

She might have lain there forever despising herself, but some indiscriminate time later she drifted into sleep. There were nightmares—not the kind that frightened with their intensity and horror, but the sort of dream that scared her more: the kind ones where her father held her and her friends came, smiling, to her side. The sort of dream she knew, vaguely, she would wake up from. The sort of dream that ended.

Jyn woke with her face wet.

"You need to speak to your friend," came a growl from the bars. She roused slowly. How long had she slept?

"What?" she mumbled, struggling to her elbows. Her eyes were crusted over. At first she had difficulty moving, she was so sore. All of the damage she had shrugged off before was roaring its presence now.

Speaking was the Devaronian from the boarding party, and he didn't hide his annoyance at having to come fetch her. "Unless you know yourself how to contact your rebel base, you need to come convince your partner to give us a transmission code."

"He's awake?" Jyn said, suddenly alert. She sat up.

"Awake, and obstinate. Talk sense to him before we lose patience."

She obediently slid off the bench and emerged from the cell at his bidding. "How much time has passed?" she asked as she rubbed at her eyes.

Across from her cell, the Imperial pilot had nodded off into a fitful sleep. The gruff sergeant watched them leave with folded arms.

"Six Standard hours," was the pirate's answer. _Six wasted hours,_ said his tone. They strode along more corridors and passed what seemed to be a small mess. Several pirates sat with pints of ale, playing sabacc. One of them swore loudly at a bad deal. Trader's argot was the preferred tongue on board.

Jyn's hands were not bound. She took that as an encouraging sign.

Her first thought on seeing the medbay was surprise that the pirates had the funds for a 2-1B droid. It swiveled to assess her with dully lit eyes.

"The human female has minor injuries," it declared flatly.

The Devaronian glared at her in a warning against beseeching use of any more medical supplies. Jyn said hastily, "It's fine."

From behind a curtain came, "Jyn!" She didn't wait for permission and was at his side in a few quick strides.

Cassian looked a mess.

His eyes were bloodshot and the spaces below them were blue from fatigue. Purpling bruises sustained from his fall were splayed across his neck, face and the few bits of of skin she could see splitting the difference between bandages. White gauzy dressing swathed his head and torso, and bacta patches were sparingly laid on the worst spots. A binder fastened his wrist to the hospital bed but Jyn thought he could not get five steps just then if he tried.

Even so, he looked very alive.

Jyn couldn't contain a tremulous smile. She would not be the only one who left the beaches alive.

Cassian returned the smile and made a move as though to take the hand gripping the edge of his bed. Awareness of the watching pirate stopped him with a frown, and Jyn suddenly remembered she was supposed to convince him to provide a code.

"I told them to ransom us," she said to him. It wasn't the first thing she wanted to say to Cassian just then, or the hundredth, but everything else would have to wait.

"She _suggested_ we ransom you," said the Devaronian dryly.  
"She makes a lot of suggestions that sound an awful lot like orders," Cassian muttered, but Jyn saw the smile threaten the corners of his mouth.

"So?" prompted the pirate. "The code. I could remind you that it is the only thing that has prevented your early exit through the airlock."

After glancing at Jyn, Cassian relented and revealed a transmission code. Jyn didn't doubt it was as basic and low-level as the codes came, the kind that was born only a week before and would die in a week's time. Face-to-face codes had the life spans of fruit flies; they rose and fell each Standard day, and in any event were only for the direst of emergencies due to the danger of interception.

And he did warn the pirate, "It's relayed through a lot of mirror stations before it will reach them —it will take a few hours. Any direct lines I knew would be defunct by now."

Satisfied, the Devaronian exited the medbay to relay the code, sealing the medbay from the corridor after instructing the droid to alert him if the hostages presented problems.

Cassian raised his eyebrows. "For a prisoner you have strange liberty. Your hands aren't even bound."

"I'm expecting them to announce me as their business partner any time now." She sobered as she searched his head and torso. "How's your head?"

"Better," he said evasively.

"Bantha shit."

This evoked an unwilling grin that faded quickly. Their hands found each other for an impromtu, solemn moment of silence. Head bowed, Jyn was desperately glad to have someone mourn with her; she'd always borne her griefs alone. The fallen deserved better than her solitary offering.

After some time Cassian murmured, "Tell me what's happened."

Jyn said what little had occurred since he'd lapsed into unconsciousness. He hadn't missed all that much. "I don't know how much they're asking the Alliance for ransom," she admitted. "Probably a lot."

"They'll pay," said Cassian, not without some guilt. Prospective bacta shipments, weapons purchases, bribes, and a thousand other of the Alliance's needs clouded his words. It was that lousy sense of duty again. He sat there with his concussion and bruises and broken ribs and who- knew-what-else and felt like a liability to both her and the Rebellion; she saw it in his face. But as the only two rebel survivors they must answer to Mon Mothma, and hope that when they stood before her there was validation in the lives that had perished on and above Scarif.

Personally, Jyn didn't care. In her head their services tallied to a worth incalculable in credits, if the plans had gone through. And she believed they did.

"I gave your name as Hallik," he told her. Jyn nodded; the Alliance would know its significance.

Cassian didn't let go of her hand. Eventually he fell asleep, and Jyn tolerated the 2-1B's fussy ministrations. Programming wasn't easily bypassed.

She supposed, a little ruefully, that she was well and truly anchored to the Alliance now. Financially, and by virtue of the captain's hand physically holding her there.

Jyn didn't take her hand away.

.

.

Note: Between us we've probably mined a hundred scenarios for post-Scarif fix-it(ish) fic, so hopefully this one isn't too repetitive! I haven't read too many stories yet so any toe- treading is accidental.

It's truly been a while since I wrote fic - my Midwestern instinct to end my sentences with a preposition is rearing its ugly head again. Thanks to all who have read, commented, followed, etc!


	3. Chapter 3

For some time bacta had been regarded as something of a miracle. Bacta—whether it came in the form of patches or injections or salve; a tank was out of the question—was a non-resource among Saw's guerillas, precious to the point of not being worth the effort. In a tank, its effects were close to miraculous. When in smaller concentrations, recuperation took longer.

Cassian had received bacta injections from an emergency field pump in addition to the patches. He was wandering around the medbay when she arrived while the 2-1B lectured him on circulation. He moved like an old man, cautiously and pained, and he kept his hand on the wall as he shuffled.

"What have you been doing?" he asked at the sight of her damp coveralls.

"Scrubbing," said Jyn, peeling off rubber gloves.

Emitting a delicately indignant noise, the 2-1B whirred over and plucked the contaminated gloves from her. It daintily dropped the pair in a small medical incinerator.

With a tiny smile for the endearingly fussy droid, Jyn looked Cassian over. "Better."

She had been accompanied to the medbay by a pirate minder, a Rodian who seemed needled at shepherding her. Doubtless it was cutting into his sabaac time. The Barabel captain had generally ignored his captives except to instruct the rebels not be mistreated. Jyn could not help lording this over the Imperials just a little, awaiting their fate in the cell across from hers.

It was tempting to relax around these people, ever so slightly. Which put Jyn on edge. They were pirates.

"The captain will be here in a moment to see you," said the guard.

In response to her raised brows, the pirate whiffed an alien laugh and added, "Did you think I was your chaperone? He wants to talk to both of you."

Rather than respond, Jyn walked over to Cassian and leaned against the bed, crossing her arms. The Rodian retreated to the doorway.

She surmised they must have contacted the Rebellion. Around thirty-six Standard hours had passed since Cassian had given them the codes, and Jyn had spent most of it ignoring the tiny voice of doubt in her mind that said, _It can't be this easy_. Cassian, too, was tense—although some of that was residual pain from injuries. Though he hid it well, Jyn sensed his disgruntlement at being so incapacitated.

"How's the—" she started to ask him, but they were interrupted by a clatter from the other side of the medbay. Jyn looked over to see the Imperial pilot sitting amid a mess of linens, apparently in the middle of changing over a bed.

They scowled at each other. "What are _you_ doing here?" she snarled.

The pilot just sneered at her and kept working. Helpfully, the 2-1B said in its flat pitch: "He has been assigned to me for the purpose of fulfilling chores in the medical bay."

Cassian imperceptibly rolled his eyes, having had to spend the past few hours pointedly ignoring the man. He needed a shave, but the 2-1B refused to give him a blade and he refused to let the droid shave him.

Shortly the captain entered, flanked by a couple of lieutenants. She'd since learned his Basic name was Bjure, his true Barabel title something more indecipherable to human ears. Jyn was no good at interpreting Barabel expressions, but it seemed to her there was something a little calculating in his slitted eyes. He waved at the Rodian to seal the door, and gazed at the pilot as though considering whether to send him away.

Eventually Bjure turned his attention to the two rebels. "We have contacted your bassse," he said. "A ransssom has been agreed upon."

They barely had time to feel relieved before he addressed Cassian.

"For you. Not her."

"What?" said Cassian.

Heat rose to Jyn's face as if she'd been slapped.

Cassian flinched like he had been. "That's a mistake," he argued. "That's not right, they must not have understood. Talk to them again."

She grew very still, as she had in the heartbeat after she realized Saw was never coming back. Blood rushed to her ears.

"They underssstood," said Bjure. "I made sure to repeat mysself, for I thought the same thing."

To their right, the Imperial pilot began to grin.

"Who did you talk to?" demanded Cassian, uncharacteristically vehement. It made his accent even stronger. "Tell them to notify Mon Mothma. Let _me_ talk to them, they will listen."

Bjure cocked his head. Either he'd heard of Mon Mothma, or he was curious about their reactions—such a stronger one from the rebel whose safety could be assured, and none at all from the hostage whose place on board was suddenly threatened. "No name was given me. I will asssk them, but it is not my perogative to make her case."

He paused, flitting his gaze between the two of them.

Then he continued, "They have seen a holo of you alive. I am not inclined to let you ssspeak to them, you could communicate a sssecret message with me none the wiser."

"Tell them they can pay double for me, then, and take us both," spat Cassian.

Jyn barely heard him. She stared straight ahead, beyond the mocking laughter coming softly from the pilot. Humiliation drained the color from her face, only to flood it again.

Cassian wheeled to the pilot and snarled a threat. It only stifled his laughter and did nothing to wipe the mirth from his face.

Their captor was unmoved. "I will not jeopardize the only guarranteed ransssom. If they will not pay for her, I will not come to them begging." He regarded Jyn with curiosity, not terribly upset by the ransom another pirate might have thought he'd been cheated. "Are you ssimply a junior officer, or are you truly with the Alliance?"

Jyn couldn't speak. "Yes!" said Cassian heatedly beside her.

Cassian continued to quarrel with him until the big lizard merely shrugged and left the room. Seeing that he was about to leave them alone, the pilot paled and ran after him. A Devaronian guard leaned its head through the doorway to assure them they were still being watched, and leaned back out.

Jyn's trance broke slightly when Cassian kept speaking with an urgency she'd not heard from him before. "It's a mistake—" A _mistake_ , that's what he'd told the pilot when he knew otherwise, and it's what he said to Jyn now like he wanted to believe it— "obviously they'd ransom you too, how could they not? It doesn't make sense."

One of Saw's old sayings came back to her: _It takes only one to deliver a message._ There wasn't anything they'd get from her they couldn't depend upon from Cassian, and more besides.

How could she have been so _stupid_?

Every damn time. With all her caution, all her distrust, she never, _ever_ saw it coming, because it came before she knew her guard was down.

She should have known better.

"Jyn," pressed Cassian, stepping directly in front of her. "We'll figure this out. You know that, don't you?"

"Liana," Jyn corrected him dully.

Shame anchored her eyes down and away. Shame at herself, for thinking she meant anything more to the Alliance than she did, and shame for the knowledge they were not wrong.

Hands pressed to either side of her face, surprising her. Cassian dipped his head into her line of sight and made her look him in the eye. "Trust goes both ways," he said. "Trust me." They stood there for a long moment.

Minutely, she nodded, and resolved that this would not affect her any further. The Rebellion had crept into her blood like the rising of the false moon above Scarif—it was there before she noticed. No longer. It would not hurt and it would not embarrass. The hatch slammed shut again, and her heart hardened against the Alliance. Cassian noted the change in her eyes and frowned.

.

.

.

The last time she'd gone to the Barabel in the control room, she'd felt some fragment of capacity despite her bound wrists. This time, her hands were free but the meeting had none of the security of an imminently safe future. Now that there was no ransom for her, there was no leverage.

Bjure inclined his head as she and the two Imperials were ushered in. Reptilian nostrils flared slightly at their human scents and Jyn was absurdly reminded of her cellmate at the Wobani prison camp, whose primary reason for desiring to murder Jyn was the terrible human "stink" that contaminated the cell night and day. The only reason she'd waited until they were placed on the same labor line—incidentally, the day of Liana Hallik's rescue—was because she feared the human's death would make the cell smell worse.

The Imperials had learned to hide most of their kneejerk discomfort at being the outnumbered race among the pirates. To alien eyes that had difficulty discriminating the subtle tells, anyway. Jyn had no trouble identifying their uneasiness, and its scent was surely noticeable to Bjure.

"So," drawled Bjure when they were assembled before him, "what to do with the ssspace urchins?" He tapped a claw on his utility belt. It rang dully in the silent room.

Jyn didn't answer what was obviously a rhetorical question. He had something in mind. Or else they'd have died in their cells already, or they'd be holding this conversation on either side of the airlock door.

 _Be careful,_ Jyn told herself. _Be so careful._

Eyes glittering, Bjure cocked his head. "You have accrued a debt with me, to the sssum of ransoms I will not get."

Pirate's logic. Jyn furiously willed the idiot pilot not to argue. She did not even glance sidelong at him. Mercifully, he and the sergeant were silent.

"There may be a way for you to repay this debt and earn your freedom—should you sssucceed," said the Barabel. "A way of paying your own ransoms. I have decided you are worth ssixty thousand credits apiece."

Somewhat of an exaggeration of the Imperials' worth, if an underestimate of Jyn's. She wondered if that had been the price the Alliance had paid for Cassian. If so, she resented them all the more for not coughing up her own ransom. Sixty thousand was a lot of money for an individual. It was not insurmountable for the Alliance, cash-strapped as it surely was.

The Imperials had far less analytical reactions, though the sergeant schooled his face better. Bjure's tail twitched in what could have been amusement at the disparity.

He was content to wait in silence until finally the sergeant asked, "How do we earn that?"

"The galaxy isss full of targets," said Bjure. "Pick one."

"What, rob a credit safe?" said the pilot wildly. "We're not thieves!"

"Until you are ransssomed, you are whatever you must be," said Bjure. Several pirates snickered.

Jyn's eyebrows shot up. Their captor was encouraging a little entreprenurial spirit in the matter. Immediately she started scanning every memory she had for opportunities, contacts, sources…she suddenly felt almost energized by the possibility. Nevermind the fact that if it were that possible for her to independently access those credits before, she would have done so already. Adversity tended to stir second winds.

The sergeant was grim but he was deep in thought, probably going through the list of every moneyed relative he could think of. The pilot, however, was breathing erratically, looking back and forth from Jyn to his sergeant as though he could not believe they were seriously considering the proposal—making the mistake of still believing it a _proposal_.

"This is crazy," he said to them and the room at large. "You can't do this. We're _Imperial soldiers_. Do you think the Emperor is going to let a couple of pirates think they can demand anything from him?"

Pure Imperial logic, drilled into him during academy or training—that he and his sergeant represented an extension of the Empire's arm, and thereby were bound intimately to the Emperor, whose power and authority were beyond dispute.

Jyn wanted to shout aloud every delusion into his face, to wring every fantasy of universal Imperial supremacy from his thin white neck. She said nothing, did nothing but stare ahead and pretend he was lightyears away and nothing to do with her.

The sergeant hissed to him, " _Shut. Up._ "

Coming from him, it was an order. Whatever that meant on an average day had no bearing on the pilot now. He was shaking his head wildly, like he had when denying, emphatically, that his Empire could have destroyed their own base on Scarif. It was the refusal of someone who had yet to process the events that had happened in rat-a-tat succession, one disaster after another.

Jyn saw what was going to happen. She saw it like a bright clear line shooting into the distance, assuming the shape of the maelstroms from Jedha and Scarif that had come to represent, to her, impending ruin.

The pilot should have seen it too but his back was firmly squared to the horizon.

Bjure's eyes narrowed, and Jyn edged away from the shore.

"Are you refusssing this chance, pilot?" he asked softly.

Jyn thought, _Yes._ Both she and the sergeant inched back.

The pilot spat accusations, all reserve lost, alone on the beach. Impassively, the Barabel gazed at him. Then he removed his blaster from its holster in a calm and unhurried motion. He released its safety and leveled it between the eyes of the pilot who suddenly blanched and raised his bound hands, saying _no, no_ …

Bjure fired. The burst ripped apart the pilot's skull and showered the space behind with blood and brain matter. Despite seeing it coming, Jyn flinched at the blast and sizzling heat. The body crumpled to the floor. The sergeant swore involuntarily.

Neither of them moved a hair. Conscious of the blaster's eye now fixed on her, Jyn kept her gaze down. An acrid smell of burned flesh reached her nose. It reached Bjure's as well and he wrinkled his snout, motioning for some lackeys to come and drag the body to the airlock.

"Doesss anyone else refuse?" he asked Jyn and the sergeant. They shook their heads and he nodded approvingly of their practicality.

It had been a while since she'd stood so near someone shot with no armor on—when she hadn't shot them herself, already running past their body. Something about the stormtrooper white forged a kind of force field that made their deaths easy to dismiss. Here, with nothing to shield the horror that petrified his mouth, lips pulled back from the teeth and the rest of the head blasted away, it was a disturbingly intimate encounter with a life ending. The eruption had swept the shore, and he was gone.

The sergeant had turned white and was shaking from a mixture of shock and fury. The Barabel gave him special consideration for a minute and Jyn wondered if he'd go ahead and shoot him too. She found she didn't care if he did.

"Do you know a soul with sssixty thousand credits they would part with?" he asked the remaining Imperial.

Mouth tight, the sergeant shook his head.

"Then your friend hasss made it harder for you," Bjure said to him. "And you as well," he added to Jyn, "For bargains may be ssstruck with ssseparated partners." While visibly unaffected by murdering the pilot, his increased hissing suggested a new animation. He looked her straight in the eye. "Now the good sssergeant here must be re-mortgaged.

You are now accountable for him. So hear me. If you attempt to decieve or essscape us, or if this Imperial tries the sssame, I will go to your rebel captain and I will _not_ shoot him. I will open every artery in his body with my own claws. And I shall do it ssslowly. I know ways of making death last. Then I will find you and feed you to a rancor one limb at a time. I know where to find one."

Jyn stood still and studied every angle of Bjure's face, almost placidly. She studied his eyes and his height and the tiny movements of his tail, for Saw had taught her to read in a glance the ones she would kill.

"What if I kill the sergeant?" she asked. "He might run."

The Imperial jerked his head toward her, startled.

Bjure's amusement returned. "Then you assume his debt. I am already taking a losss on the pilot."

Jyn considered it, for an idea had bloomed distantly in her mind. Or rather, a name did.

"And then what? I give you your credits, what next?"

"Then you may go, with our blessing and sssatisfaction," said the Barabel, and the pirates laughed—though some were, through their smiles, eyeing Jyn with the same wariness the Weequay had shown a day before. She wasn't responding in a way they had anticipated. "And we releassse your captain to the Alliance for ransom."

"What assurance do I have you'll follow through?" Jyn said. It was perhaps spoken too archly, but Bjure sensed a businesslike negotiator and responded in kind.

"You may withhold the creditsss until the moment we release him. As a measure of good faith." He cocked his head and added, "The pilot misjudged his place, but I am a Barabel, and my word is honor."

That it was, from what Jyn knew of his species. Of course, whatever code he upheld was subject to personal interpretation she had no say in. Nonetheless, she knew when to take the only exit and when to blast open a new one, and this was a time for the proffered door.

A name drifted again before her eyes.

Not only was this her way off the pirates' ship…if it worked, it would satisfy a grudge that lay among the many bones in the graveyard of Jyn's enmity. She skulked around the idea like a vrelt, circling it, testing it.

"I can repay you," she said with cold certainty. If there was the beginning of a subliminal smile at the corner of her lips, she did not notice. Bjure and the sergeant did.

"How?" asked the pirate.

Jyn knew. Jyn told them.

.

.

.

"I don't like this," Cassian said in a heated whisper.

What choice was there? "Neither do I, but I can't say no. The pilot just did, and they shot him dead."

Cassian said sharply, "What? He's dead?"

"Yes." Jyn folded her arms. "They're not interested in servants, Cassian. This is my only way out." _Alive_ , she didn't say.

A guard waited outside the medbay, barely out of earshot, but Jyn felt his presence as a breath over her shoulder.

Brow furrowed, Cassian was digesting news of the pilot's death. Neither of them cared much that he was dead, but it underscored the danger that prowled beneath the civil veneer of their imprisonment. "How do you know they'll keep their end of the bargain?"

Jyn said gently, "I don't." She didn't, not really, even given the leverage of credits.

Spies knew the questions to ask. If they did not ask, it was because the answer was obvious. Cassian did not question how the pirates trusted Jyn to not run off with the spoils of the mission, should the chance come. He, too, understood leverage, and the knowledge that the leverage was _him_ darkened his mood. Rather than admit it was the simple math of the universe, however, he fought it.

"A little while longer—"

"And you'd still be in no shape to fight," Jyn interrupted, "and they wouldn't let you anyway."

She had more experience accepting disappointment than he did. Since he'd begun his war at six, Cassian Andor was practiced in manipulating circumstances to create some sketchy approximation of the outcome he intended. Life had never sent him down a hatch to await an uncertain future; it had never led him to a remote cave and kept him there until dawn and the realization that no one was ever coming again. Leaving the hatch, emerging from the tunnel: that was acceptance. Acceptance was vital for moving on.

In the end, Cassian's innate pragmatism won out. It always did.

"There's nothing except to see this through," said Jyn, sitting down at his side.

Cassian's eyes narrowed. "And then what?"

Her expression was carefully neutral. "We'll see."

Frustrated, he shook his head. "Come back to the Rebellion. Jyn, they _want_ you. Some junior lieutenant didn't know any better. Mon Mothma wants you there, so do I." He didn't notice how the frank admission spiked a blush in her cheeks. "Stop drifting. Come _home_."

Home was a nebulous concept. Home was whatever roof stood above her head until someone came and blew it down. He should know that line of reasoning wouldn't sway her, because she'd never had a concrete grasp of what it meant. If home was the place that defined you, Jyn's was the hatch. It was the cave.

Jyn couldn't deny that some measure of her obligations had died on the beaches of Scarif. She had laid them down in the sand and they were swallowed by the inferno.

"Cassian, I can't go back just for you."

Whatever surprise he might have felt was stubbornly squashed by the necessity of convincing her. "You don't have to love the Rebellion," he argued. "You hate the Empire. That's enough."

Hate, she agreed, was usually enough. But she'd always had hate to spare, and a little of it was reserved for the Alliance.

The Alliance had dropped a bomb on her father. The Alliance had refused to listen. The Alliance had extinguished any chance of planning a united attack on Scarif with the full coordination of its resources. If not for the blessed recklessness of General Raddus and his Mon Calamari, whom she _did_ respect, would they have ever even come?

In a way, by their refusal to pay her ransom she was saved from becoming indebted to the Rebellion and excusing them from any measure of her grievance. Any attempt to label it a _liberation_ could be easily shot down by an accusation of resentment—which was plenty true—but it made her relationship to the rebels a lot less complicated. Again, Jyn Erso was someone who appreciated simplicity.

He might have been reading a datapad, so easily did Cassian scan her thoughts.

"The Alliance isn't perfect," he said with a gentleness she remembered from her first days with him. It rankled how he reverted to the operative so easily now that she wasn't in full cooperation again. "But it's worthy."

Jyn snorted. "Your worthy friends came to Scarif for Raddus, not us. If it weren't for him those plans would have gotten about as far as we could throw them."

Cassian considered for a long moment and said seriously, "Chirrut might say that the Force acted in such a way as to ensure things happened the way they needed to."

"Or maybe the Force just had to compensate for the effort your Alliance wouldn't make," snapped Jyn. It angered her that Cassian would invoke Chirrut's name like that, so soon after.

He surprised her. "Maybe you're right."

She stopped at the sincerity in his voice, in his eyes.

"Maybe everything that happens _is_ engineered that way—to win in the end. What if the Force really does will the Empire to fall? What if it really does wants _you_ to help kill it?" he pressed. "Will you stand to the side? Because I don't think you can anymore. Not like before."

It sounded like something Chirrut would have said. It sounded, damn him, _wise_. Jyn had once told Saw that the flag didn't matter if it wasn't in your line of sight—but since then, she'd started looking up.

Jyn had never wondered what Cassian thought of the Force, or whether he thought about it at all. Pragmatists didn't wander around entrusting their missions to the Force (Chirrut had entrusted every step. Baze, maybe every other step.) Now, the spy sat before her and talked of a cosmic balance that would, by virtue of its own nature, inevitably spell the end of the malignant darkness in the galaxy.

And he believed it. She saw.

She also saw his guilt. If not for the emergency treatment he needed, Jyn might have persuaded the pirates to let them be on the _Lambda_. Instead she'd risked everything to save him, and he could do nothing about it. Guilt ran in cycles, however: he had been injured in the first place because he'd put his faith in her and gone to Scarif. Jyn had not forgotten.

Distantly she saw her anger as a rising tide, and knew it to be dangerous. Saw had lectured that rage, when harnessed, was a powerful tool, but it was consumptive as wildfire. He'd been meticulous and preemptive about managing his own, but even so it had germinated a quiet, abiding instability that had surfaced by the time she saw him again.

So, too, did desperation threaten her focus. Not for her own safety, or even Cassian's—for she knew with cold calm clarity he would go on living and she would see to it—but for what she'd lost already. Her friends died on Scarif. Her father died on Eadu. Her mother died on Lah'mu. Up ahead there was a deep impasse, and Jyn felt for its presence with her toes.

Instinctively her hand touched the kyber crystal that hung around her neck. It had never been confiscated by the pirates, who presumbly knew little of such things. Abruptly it struck her that the same rock used to power the lightsabers of the righteous Jedi had been employed by the Empire to fuel the terrible power of its planet killer.

She'd never known why her mother had kept it. Perhaps she'd hoped it would, one day, change color for her as they had for Jedi. Or maybe it was a reminder that people, like kyber crystals, were catalysts.

Jyn was like the crystal in its rawest state, preparatory to assuming a color.

"Even if that's true," she murmured, hand on the kyber, "it doesn't excuse them. They're still accountable for the decisions they've made."

Sensing he wasn't going to persuade her yet, Cassian exhaled imperceptibly. "What's the mission?"

"It's not a mission," said Jyn, rousing her attention again, "so much as a target."

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